Saturday, February 17, 2007

Six Day Underwear, a Japanese invention back in the 1980s

Six Day Underwear . . .
[Originally published in JIM'S LITTLE BLOG on December 08, 2005 (link).]

[see 'directions' below if you want to use these (nasty) things]

For the last week when I can't sleep I have been reading blogs. I am learning some things and getting some ideas. I have had other ideas when blogging was only a gleam in my eye.

Tonight I read the
jgoerzen 12-07-2005 post about underwear rotation. It is cute and most of his commenters have had a similar experience.

His story reminded me of this one. I used to tell it to my students when were exploring marketing. It helped them remember the Four P's of Marketing, maybe.

A mini lesson here: The Four P's of Marketing are 1. Product; 2. Price; 3. Promotion; and 4. Distribution (if you have to have a 'P' here, think 'Placement' of the product).

Students who were still missing this on examinations by the end of the course would FAIL. Regardless of their number or percent grade.

Oh yes, 'Six Day' fits the 'P'-Product studies in the sub-category of New Product Development.

The story of 'Six Day Underwear' [this tale is true]:


The concept was originated as a possible new product in an annual company contest by a Toyota employee in Japan, as reported in The Wall Street Journal. I have no idea of the publication date, it was in the 80s. The employee was upset about this job requirement [of having to come] . . . up with a new product.

Directions:

Six day underwear has three leg holes.

1. Wear for day one
2. Rotate using the unused leg hole and wear for day two
3. Rotate in the same direction by one leg hole and wear for day three
4. Turn underwear inside out
5. Repeat steps 1, 2, and 3 for days four, five, and six.

Try it, you might like it. Mrs. Jim thinks the whole idea is very gross and I will catch the Dickens when she reads this blog entry. She will be home Friday evening so I will be good after this. Promise. Well, for a little while.

Roy Orbison is finishing up on PBS so maybe I can sleep now. I can sleep pretty good when Mrs. Jim is home. Jim
.
That was over a year ago. I did catch the Dickens, Mrs. Jim thinks this story is gross every time I tell it. So did a lot of my business class students.


Comments:
8 Original Comments

Rachel said...
Yuck to the 3 holed shorts! I imagine they could stand alone after that!

Thu Dec 08, 05:36:21 PM CST


Anonymous said...
What a creative way to conserve water! Found your Blog via John Goerzen and was delighted that you were a fellow Burt Countian. Where did you go to high school? The only rural one that I can remember is Riverside (which both of my parents went to) but it closed in the early '40's.

Fri Dec 09, 12:49:02 AM CST


Jim said...
Thanks for looking.
Did you go to Tekamah or Decatur?
I wouldn't have posted this underwear thing ever except I like it and it is a deviation from the other underwear rotation topic.
I went to New England High School in north Washington County for two years. That's when I rode Mini, my horse.
The last two years were at Tekamah High and I drove my Dad's pickup. Then I went off to U.N. only to drop out. I didn't come back to Tekamah.

Fri Dec 09, 03:02:34 AM CST


Anonymous said...
I went to Tekamah - maiden name Major. My husband's family - Clements - lived in the New England community.

Fri Dec 09, 10:06:13 AM CST


Jim said...
Hello. Thanks for answering.

You can watch for a post later and we can match things up to see if we knew each other in our previous lives. I may have been in school with your parents-I'm early 1950's.

I'm older than Cliff, but not old enough to be his father. If you have e-mail Cliff he could tell you some about me and/or my e-mail address.

That update will be after Mrs. Jim comes. Then we have a Christmas party tonight so it might be a day or two.

But I will post it here. Right now I'm finishing SOME of my 'honey dues' and answering some questions from my sister who lives in Iowa.

My post for the day will be answers to her questions pasted in if I have time.

Fri Dec 09, 12:10:01 PM CST


Marty Morrow said...
jim - if you rode your horse to school, you probably parked it next to dad's horse (fran morrow) or his brothers ed, clark, les and cliff. dad use to talk about underwear rotation growing up. his mom would line up the boys and say "ok fran, you rotate with ed, clark, you rotate with les... etc. etc.

Tue Dec 13, 08:25:24 PM CST


Jim said...
Hey Marty -- Thanks for reading.
Actually I went to New England School for two years. It was in Washington County. We had an eight-horse barn there.
I did go to school with your aunt O.R. and your uncle Clark at Tekamah for my last two years of high school.

Wed Dec 14, 01:39:34 PM CST


Anonymous said...
Interested in verifying the underwear report. Some internet posts indicate this might have been a hoax.

Wed Jun 21, 06:24:24 PM CDT
..
 
This was not a hoax. At least the part of it being in the Wall Street Journal.
For a long time, I carried the article to class in my text book as a book marker for the appropriate topic of 'new product development.'
This is an example of the 'idea stage' in product development.
..
 
Naughty, naughty.
 
Trust Mrs. Jim on this...
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?